When the World Drops Dead
by Still Bullet
Summary: When half of the world drops dead in front of you, and the other half turns into mindless zombies who would do anything to get a taste of your blood, what do you do? I wish I knew... One-shot NOTE: This was published before the game came out!


_This story was not brought to you by Matt who is the reason why I always have such crappy titles all the time. Yay!_

_Anyways, wow. I wrote a story for a game that's not even out yet. "Left 4 Dead" is Valve's most recent awesome game-in-the-works, and for whatever reason I wrote a one-shot for it. I know most of you guys probably don't know much about the game--hell, I didn't know much about it myself--but if that's the case, go to left4dead411(dot)com, and watch the "GT TV Interview and Preview" in the videos section, that thing will get you up to date._

_Anyway, this is another writing experiment, if anything. I wanted to write a first-person narrative story for a while now, and since I had so much inspiration and Spartan-IV recently came out with an awesome first-person narrative story, I finally pushed myself and got it going. It came out pretty long for just an experiment--one short of 4,000 words--and I hardly knew where I was going half the time. Either way, I hope you still like it._

**_Based on: Left 4 Dead (Valve, although technically Turtle Rock)  
Rating: T, since the game itself is really bloody and this story contains some slightly disturbing images  
Author's Notes: Even if you don't watch the video, I tried my best to explain a little bit about Left 4 Dead so that you get an idea. The only thing that I didn't explain were the Boomers, which are Zombies filled with gas that explode when you hit them and puke blood, which is like bait for the infected should you get covered by it.  
Also, sorry if this sounds offending in any way. I don't like to do that at all, but for the sake of characterization, I sort of had to. Hope you enjoy it, anyhow!_**

**_--_**

If you ask me what my story is, you wouldn't believe me. Well, that's not really unsurprising, though, if you think about it. How many nineteen year old girls do you know about that can handle basically any weapon you toss them and can make it out of a city infested with zombies?

Yeah, yeah, I know. You think I'm just quoting a horror movie, or something. But I swear on my life—which, I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep—that every single word I'm about to tell you is all the truth. And if I was lying at all, than may a god, _the _god, I don't care who, kill me with a bolt of lightning right on the spot and let it be the most unpleasant death anyone has ever experienced.

Think I'm telling the truth, now?

Anyway, this all started…I can't even remember when. I think it was only a couple of days ago at the least, maybe even at the most, but hell, I'm not sure of anything, anymore. I've been running on nothing but the scraps I managed to pick up and shove into my mouth—that could very well be a year-old hunk of cheese that's been rotting in a dumpster for all I care,—my energy is nothing but pure adrenaline, the only liquids I've drank were any splats of blood that managed to make it into my mouth somehow, which you could mainly blame the Boomers for, and whatever rain drops my tongue can catch.

But, yeah. I need to stay on track, here. So, I'm not sure if you heard, but there's some damn weird virus going around that turns its poor victims into blood-thirsty, misty-eyed, screaming, blue-skinned freaks that would give _anything _for a taste of our flesh. The entire town was taken over by this damn thing. Even my family, my friends…god, I can't think about it now. Only four of us are standing with the only desire we have being to get to safety. And that four includes me, by the way.

If you took one look at the others, you probably wouldn't automatically expect me to be hanging out with these kinds of guys. Let's take Francis, for instance. He's the getting-to-that-age type of biker, with the whole sleeve deal going on with his tattoos and his dark hair and beard getting longer each day. Bill has the most experience out of all of us, I'd say—he happens to be a vet from Vietnam back in the good ol' days. Louis is some guy unlucky enough to wind up in this position—sort of like me, if you think about it. He's black, but hell, the only skin color I hate are the abnormal, virus kind. Louis also used to work at some type of electronics store, I think I've been there maybe once or twice, but my mom prefers WalMart or the mall over anything, basically.

Me? Funny you should ask. I'm Zoey, about to start my first year of college, and then, _BOOM_!, this thing hits. There goes that master's degree. I'm not like your typical teenaged girl, basically. I even surprised myself these past couple of days. I've seen the whole deal when it comes to guns and stuff, since my father used to work as a police officer, then he switched his jobs around from one well-paying business to another for a little while, but I've never really shot one of them myself. But I guess everyone has their own hidden skills when it comes to using weapons, especially when you're doing it to save your life, or maybe even someone else's.

Let me take an incident we had not too long ago to demonstrate that. Louis was the most recent victim of a Smoker's choking tongue, and even though I don't really know the guy too well, I knocked him out of the Smoker's grasp while Bill and Francis shot down the infected. He slipped me a thank you, along with a nervous smile. It's funny. This virus, this…end of the world, you might as well put it, got us together. Four unlikely people, thrown together into one group with guns, and for some reason we watch each other's backs all the time.

But, really. You have to be the most _beyond _cruel-hearted, selfish person to _not _help each other out. I'm talking more evil than, you know, some super villain from one of Stan Lee's tons of famous comics. None of us ever complain about how someone's doing their job, how slow they're going, how fast they're going, if they owe them or something else like that. We always stick together, 'cause if you go alone in _these _streets, you'll be dead before you know it. Hell, each of us were close to losing our lives about ten times, now. I myself was actually under attack by some Hunter tearing the crap out of me, until Francis got my back and shot it off for me.

If it's not obvious by now, going through a city infested with this crap isn't so much of a pretty sight. I'm familiar with many people of the town, and seeing them screaming for my blood with no recognition of who I am isn't so easy on the heart.

Let's take that Hunter that tried to eat Bill's head off just now, which I shot down for him. Thing about Hunters are that they're too damn fast to get a good glimpse of, and when you do, they have their hoodies covering their heads like that kid who likes to sit in the corner away from the crowd. And even if you're quick enough to shoot one down before—or after—they get a taste of you, you only have about literally two seconds to look at its corpse before you're either on the move again or some other infected take a lunge at you. This Hunter, however, I managed to get a good look of, and simply frowned to myself once I recognized who it was.

Buried underneath all that dried blood was a face I knew oh-so-well. Roy was a good friend of mine ever since I first entered high school back when I moved here, and seeing him shot down like that was really a kick to the head. It really made me wonder what kind of cruel joke this was. I'm not exactly too religious or anything, but its times like this when I wonder if there really is such a thing as a devil who likes to wreck havoc just for kicks.

Well, now we're here in the safe zone, which I guess we've sort of dubbed as the "safe room". The infected can bust through doors and walls if they really wanted too, and it was only a matter of time before they busted this one. So, I guess it wasn't really much of a safe zone, but anyway. Bill told us that there was a group of survivors that were going to evacuate us via helicopter…on the other side of town.

Don't you just love when things are planned like that?

Now, I don't know what kind of super natural being is on our side, but we struck some luck and came across a couple of first-aid kits, ammo, and some guns in the room. Each of us got our pick of our weapon—I took the Uzi, while Francis took a pump shotgun, Bill took a rifle, and Louis took whatever else was left—and we each got our fair share of ammo and strapped our first-aid kits to our backs. Bill asked us if we were ready, and with a nod from each of us he opened the door and we were on our way across the streets.

The weather, I can tell you, was just like a classic horror movie…you know, with the rain and thunder and flashes of lightning. But let me remind you, this is no movie. This is real, and that horde of infected rushing after us was _definitely_ real as hell. This isn't some kind of dream, either—some infected guy just took a swing at me, and let me tell you, that _hurt_, ok?

So there we were, running like hell, although Pink Floyd's got nothing on this one. We blasted what we had to, since ammo isn't something you would find laying around in the street, and reloaded only when our guns swallowed our last bullet from each magazine. Despite my efforts to save every last bullet, I found myself slinging the Uzi behind my back and taking out my pistol anyway. I was completely out, but lucky for me, my skills with a pistol were just as equal as the big guns. Then I heard some screaming behind me, but this time it was human, and I turned around to see Francis down on the ground shooting the infected with his pistol and using the last bit of energy he had left. I called out to the other boys ahead to turn around and wait for us, and so they did—and that's when I felt something wrap around my neck like a damn cobra.

Smoker got me. I screamed for my life, begging for help, but the two others were currently busy with Francis. Louis was pulling Francis back to his feet, while Bill watched his back. They told me that they were coming just as soon as Francis was back up, and I prayed to god that they weren't going to let me die like this, or even die themselves. Then I felt the grip of the Smoker's tongue let itself go and was glad to get some air in my lungs again…and I was glad to know that the others were standing in front of me, safe and sound.

Scratch that. Another horde of infected began to rush at us from an alleyway, and we immediately took off towards our destination. The place the helicopter was going to pick us up was over at some building only a few blocks away, but by this time I could hardly breathe and I could have sworn I saw Bill limp for a moment.

We pulled onward anyway, wiping out the infected that we could and running for our lives. I could have sworn I heard Louis complaining about how he should have stayed at his store, but there was so much screaming going on that it was hard to tell.

Eventually, we made it out of the streets, where I managed to pick up another pistol from on top of some random police car, and then we made our way into some person's house. Not like we had to knock—the door was already half-broken, anyway. You know, now that I mention it, it's kind of funny to see infected police officers. Not, you know, funny like you're watching your favorite movie on Comedy Central for the fourth time now, but funny as in, damn, that's ironic. Just goes to show you how this virus is—even the people that should be saving us have lost it. So, anyway, now we're in the house and already there's a bunch of destruction everywhere. Not like that was rare outside on the streets or anything; I can't even begin to list the amount of destruction I saw, what with the crashed cars and broken windows, and I think I even saw a blown-up gas truck…

But, back to where I was, this house was quiet for the first moment we entered. But that's how everything always starts off, anyway. Francis happened to find a nice sight of a woman's corpse on a bed watching the channel that I liked to call, "This is an odd test using a screen of rainbow stripes and an annoying bleep kind of sound", with some kind of piece of paper with writing I didn't have time to read next to her. Not a pretty sight, of course, but neither is seeing a Boomer blow up or getting that vision I've grown to _love _of having his puked-blood on your face. We made our way into the kitchen, where a huge hole in the wall followed by some stumbling infected lied in wait for us. I yelled to the others to know what was ahead, and shot them down with my pistols. Louis ran ahead of us, and I heard him shout that he was tossing a grenade. I figured it was a cocktail, since I heard the smash of glass and fire starting up. Turns out I was right. When the rest of us caught up with Louis, he was standing next to a giant hole in the floor, blasting away at any infected that managed to make it past the fire and climb up towards our level. The fire was just about out, and thank god, because the infected started coming in from behind us. We jumped down and continued our way, coming out on the street again after making our way through a series of rooms.

Bill told us to hold up and watch his back as he quickly began to patch himself up. We were doing just that…and then another horde came at us. If you haven't figured it out yet, these hordes were endless. Francis managed to take care of them with his shotgun, and I followed his example with my two pistols. As soon as Bill was done we pressed on, shooting what was coming at us. A familiar scream came into the air, and we had a total of literally one second to realize that a Hunter was on its way towards us, before it lunged at Francis. Lucky for him, however, he made a well-timed shove sort of move with his gun, and managed to knock the Hunter down first, with Louis blasting it dead. Eventually we came across a store, which, coincidentally, had a corpse inside along with a bunch of ammo next to it. We grabbed what we could and as it turns out, Bill told us that the building next to this one was where we were supposed to meet the helicopter.

Actually, now that I can think about it, I could have sworn I heard it coming.

Once again, out on the streets we were, although we quickly entered the next building. The door was locked, but Louis solved that problem by shooting it open, giving us a sight of a couple of infected waiting for us. We all got our share of kills and made it towards the stairs of the building, not trying to look into any rooms in fear that there could be, say, a Tank, or something.

But hey, guess what, I jinxed us, as it turns out a Boomer was stomping around on the next floor. The stairs were covered with crap that we didn't have time to clear out, so we took the door out and onto the level, which is when we saw the Boomer. I accidentally shot it as a reaction, and that only got the Boomer more pissed. It wound up puking its blood-filled stomach all over poor Bill, which made another horde of infected follow soon after. We all managed to make it out of the Boomer's way in time, allowing Francis to take one shot at it and blowing it up. The horde still tried to follow us, so I tried to wipe out the ones that I could until it finally got quiet and we made it into a new room. A red door made all of us happy as we ran inside the room behind it and closed the door immediately.

Thank god, we hit a safe room again.

We took our choice of weapons and ammo once again—I exchanged the old Uzi for a new—and hopefully better—one, while the men got what they wanted. Another first-aid kit for those who needed it, and we exited the safe room as we continued our way through the building.

Lucky for us there was only one more floor left before we hit the roof, and while the stairs were killed there was a small hole in the ceiling and enough debris for us to climb our way up there. We helped each other up and ran over towards the landing pad, and I was relieved to know that the helicopter itself was somewhere in the not-so-far-distance, making its way towards us. While we all felt relieved, we still weren't completely safe—I could hear the sound of the infected making their way towards us. To our horror, a massive amount of infected came out from basically nowhere and everywhere, all running towards us with speeds so fast that there was a delay until my mind finally caught up with what was going to happen. Plenty of infected came at us—woman and men alike, Hunters, even a few Smokers, but I was not planned for what was coming next.

I realized that I never really mentioned what a Tank was. Well, just imagine the Hulk, only as a zombie. That's what Tanks are, and you could unload every single bullet you had into them and they would still manage to live. What sucked about this was that there were _two_ of them coming at us…_at the same time_.

I can't even begin to describe how damn scared I was.

We blasted each and every being like maniacs, trying to kill the Tanks before they got to us. Louis shouted at us to toss any grenades that we had left at the influx, and so we did. Bill and Francis tossed their cocktails, while I tossed a pipe bomb I was so glad that I saved. Even though Louis thought of the plan, he was out of grenades, himself. We watched as corpses flew through the air—sometimes even towards us—and for a moment there was a pause as the fire the cocktails had caused prevented the infected from progressing ahead. The infected aren't stupid, let me tell you—they won't run through a mine field just to get to you, they actually have a little bit of common sense to know what would kill them and what won't. My eyes caught a quick glimpse at one of the corpses closest to me, and for a moment I felt terrible.

…that corpse was my mother.

I never really was so close to my mom as someone like me should probably be; I hung out with her from time to time, but I was more close to my dad, if anything. However, seeing her next to me, lying on the floor dead like that, with blood covering her body and her work clothes still on, I couldn't help but feel like I was about to puke. I never wanted something like this to happen to anyone. Hell, even the boys back in freshman year who wouldn't stop annoying me to hell didn't deserve something like this to happen to them.

I heard someone scream my name as I realized that a Tank, now engulfed in flames, was coming towards me. I tried my best efforts to shoot the crap out of it and run away from where it was charging, but I wound up feeling myself drop to the ground as a Hunter attacked my from behind and got me down on my stomach.

I thought for sure I was going to die—there was no question about it, I was dead, totally dead. Not only did I have that Hunter tearing me limb from limb, that Tank came over and did a "Hulk _smash_!" on me, nearly making me unconscious and barely able to shoot whatever bullets I had left from my two pistols. I heard gunshots from friendly fire faintly, as I felt the Hunter get kicked off of me and I was soon dragged up to my feet.

Some voice was asking me if I was all right, however I couldn't tell who it was as the gunfire was still going on and I was trying to gain back my head. I finally snapped to and noticed Bill and Francis trying to tear the crap out of a Tank, with a corpse of one close by. Louis stared at me with wide, glassy eyes, once again asking if I was alright. He had his back against the infected, and all of the sudden, _WHAM_, a couple of them knock him down.

That was it. I was so sick of these god damn monsters, I just couldn't take it anymore. I screamed at the top of my lungs—you might as well call it a war cry—as I unleashed all the ammo my Uzi was holding directly into every single infected I caught a glimpse of. The Tank let out a huge roar as it _finally _fell down dead, and with perfect timing the helicopter had finally arrived. I was never happier to see so many dead bodies. I helped Louis up, and we all ran towards the helicopter, a new swarm of infected not so far behind us.

Bill told us to get to the chopper as he covered our backs, but at the last moment I felt like screaming.

We were about to take off when Bill joined us, but all the sudden a freaking Smoker decided that we weren't winning this one and grabbed Bill's neck with its fifty-foot tongue. It was about to pull him in, but Francis caught his arm just in time.

I was so tired of this.

Out of blind rage, I blasted what little ammo I had left from the Uzi all across the Smoker's tongue. What pissed me off was the fact that it never let its grip go, until there was so many bullet holes that the tongue itself tore apart. I pulled Bill inside the helicopter and he quickly tore the still-wrapped-around-his-neck part of the Smoker's tongue.

We all sat there, trying to catch the breath that we had lost and reloading our guns just in case. I looked down below to see that a horde had completely covered the roof now, trying to reach us in any way possible, but we were already too far away for them to do so.

Thank god.

I leaned against a wall of the chopper and fell to the ground, keeping my Uzi in a tight grip. Damn. I took a quick scan of the others and was glad to know that they were all right, just out of breath like I was.

So, there you have it. There's my story. If you didn't believe me at all, then whatever. I didn't get struck by lightning incase you're wondering, so what I said was all the truth. Just ask the guys. But here's just a word of advice—what you see in movies could _very much _wind up being your life one day. Just…be aware.

I don't know about you, but I'm keeping a shotgun under my bed from now on.

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_Well now, I had no idea how to end this. I hope that it came out good either way, and I hope that this was a successful experiment! Thank you for reading!_


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